Sago Popcorn is something you just cannot stop poping..They are light, crisp and slightly salted and needs no make over!! What else does a mommy need to please her naughty, fussy toddler? My son absolutely loves it for its color and taste. You can find them (raw material) in Indian Stores. I bought them from India, so you all might wanna check them when you visit India. My mom-in-law gave me a big pack of raw material which I never thought would be so useful to lure my son! I am indeed thankful to her :)

If you are a southindian and have attended marriages you might have seen them at weddings! They are served after lunch/main meal.. :D like khara boondi, khara mandakki etc..All others can try them at home and experiance the taste of it. Here is how the raw material looks like:

Heat a heavy bottomed pan on medium flame. Add a handfull of sago into it. Keep stirring to avoid sticking of sago to the pan. You can use a teaspoonful of oil for first batch. You can see sago poping up. Continue stirring till all of them have poped up. Remove it into a plate. You can serve it as it is coz it is slightly salted. If you want to do make over you can add roasted peanuts, red chilli powder and grated dry coconut, toss and mix to serve. Here you go with the picture of finished product:

Cooking low GI food with consciousness is no easy! My brain has to constantly work in order to differentiate btw low, medium and high GI. Mixing low and medium, or mixing low and high GI food results in medium GI food stuff. So, my brain can take a break for a while and think later. :D Rice being a high GI food, always has to be mixed with few low GI vegetables/pulses to make the resulting dish a medium GI food.

A combination of rice and lentils with low GI vegetables makes a quick and tasty lunch. You can use the search box here http://www.glycemicindex.com/ on this website to search for GI of various food stuff. You can also see GI of Uppittu here :D Uppittu has a GI of 67! Now back to the recipe, and here you go with the recipe for a medley of Rice n Lentils with Vegetables.Ingrediants :Rice : 1 cup (basmati is said to have a less GI compared to other rice)Yeloow Lentils (split green beans) : 1 cup (Hesarubele/pongal dal)French bean : 1/2 cup chopped into small piecesOnion : 1 medium sizedPeas : 1/4 Cup (optional)Green Chillies : 5 , vertically slitSaltCoriander leaves for garnishing

Raita:Low-fat yoghurt : 1 small cupTomato : 1 small chopped into small pieces

Tamper:Oil, Mustard seeds, Curry Leaves and a pinch of turmeric

Method :Roast yellow dal/lentils till they are slightly browned.Heat a tbsp of oil in a cooker pan. When it is sufficiantly hot add mustard seeds.Next goes curry leaves and a big pinch of turmeric.Add green chillies and onions. Fry till they are transcluscent. Next is the turn of french beans.Add salt, rice and lentils. Measure water according to the instructions of your rice and lentils packet. Additional half a cup of water can be added for vegetables. Check for salt.close the cooker lid and pressure cook. After 3 whistles, you can turn off the stove.When the pressure comes down (takes around 7-9 mins) garnish with chopped coriander leaves and pack in your box.

Add chopped tomato and salt to low fat yoghurt. Mix well and pack in a small box. Raita is ready!The total cooking time is 30mins. Enjoy your meal!!

Pressed Rice can be prepared in many ways. Being a wife of a chemist, I thought of naming the 'other' ways of making them as isotopic preparations. In Chemistry an isotope means "Atoms of the same element can have different numbers of neutrons; the different possible versions of each element" , why not apply this to our avalakki/pressed rice preparations? :D

Mom prepared atleast 4 varieties of avalakki, so I had enough reasons to call them isotopes. ;) One of the tastiest isotopic preparation is 'Gojju Avalakki'.

A favorite and easy to make breakfast. Here is how you can make tasty gojju avalakki for yourself :

Ingrediants:Rice Flakes/Pressed Rice/Avalakki/Avval - 1 big cupTamarind Juice - 2 tbspTurmeric - 1/2tspSambar Powder : 1tbspSaltOil - 1tbspMustard - 1 tspPeanuts : a handfulCurry LeavesHing-1 big pinchHow to make it:Take Avalakki in a blender and powder it. It should take 30 sec to powder pressed rice and not more than that. Powdered avalakki looks like semolina at this stage.Take pressed rice semolina in a big bowl and wash it with water. Add little water to avval, tamarind juice, turmeric, sambar powder, salt and mix.Keep it aside for about 7 mins. Mix the contents again.Heat oil in a pan, add mustard seeds and let it splutter.Add peanuts, fry them till they turn red. Add curry leaves and a pinch of hing.Switch off the stove and add soaked Avalakki mix. Mix well.Warm it up and garnish with grated wet coconut and coriander. Serve it with a cup of hot coffee.

It is very tiring to cook after office for many working women. Most of us look for something which can be done fast and get away with the kitchen work. Brinjal Curry is a contribution by my MIL which is tasty, grindless and fast to cook. If you have few frozen chapathis, just re heat them on tava and enjoy them with brinjal curry.

6. Stirr and mix for next 30 sec. Add tamarind paste and little water (5-8tbsp)

7. Cook brinjal on low flame for next 10 mins or till the brinjals are soft and tender.

8. Check for salt, adjust the curry according to your taste.

9. Remove from stove and set it aside for 5 mins.

10. Serve with chapathi, roti, any indian bread.

Total time taken : 20 mins including cutting time.

The surface area of brinjals increases when they are cut into smaller pieces, thus cutting down the cooking time. The curry has less oil and healthy to eat.

Glycemic Index; what is the glycemic index of your food ?

What Is Glycemic Index?The Glycemic Index (GI) is a numerical scale used to indicate how fast and how high a particular food can raise our blood glucose (blood sugar) level. A food with a low GI will typically prompt a moderate rise in blood glucose, while a food with a high GI may cause our blood glucose level to increase above the optimal level.

An awareness of foods' Glycemic Index can help you control your blood sugar levels, and by doing so, may help you prevent heart disease, improve cholesterol levels, prevent insulin resistance and type-2 diabetes, prevent certain cancers, and achieve or maintain a healthy weight. A substantial amount of research suggests a low GI diet provides these significant health benefits.

Glycemic Index of Brinjal and Onions are rated at 15 each (with reference to white bread). The GI of the whole curry is the average of individual ingrediants. The ingrediants chosen above for curry are from LOW GI catergory and hence healthy to eat.

Eating healthy to keep fit is something everyone likes to do. I am trying to cook my food with conscience with an intent to keep myself healthy. My approach is to go by glycemic index values of food. This would be my first contribution towards it.

The toal amount of food taken is just divided and eaten at regular intervals and low GI foods helped to maintain sugar levels at these intervals. This is my experince.

My heart felt thanks to Sia of Monsoon Spice for her timely suggestion and help when I was doing some major changes to my blog looks. I do not understand A B C D of any javascript, code etc but still can do blogging..:D It is all because of wonderfull techie bloggers out there and their wish to share the information. One such great helping hand was Sia. She offered me very good suggestion and also answered my queries very promptly. Another blog which helped me was TIPS FOR NEW BLOGGERS If you are a tech challenged person like me, you may like this blog for the step by step explanation with pictures.

Fresh Fenugreek Leaves Salad :

This refreshing salad is a joy to eat with indian breads like Chapathi/Parantha/Jowar bhakri/rice flour bhakri..etc. It is on menu in the households of Chitradurga, Davangere and adjacent districts of Karnataka. Most widely eaten with Jowar roti.

Fenugreek leaves are known for their anti diabetic activity. It is recommended in ayurveda and chinese medicine for treating various ailments. In Ayurveda, it is said that the bitter juice of fresh fenugreek leaves helps to remove toxins from your body thus keeping the body clean. More information can be seen on 'The health information network' . The benefits of eating raw vegetable goes beyond saying. More information about fenugreek can be seen on Wiki and here. I learned it from our neighbours.

Chop onion into very thin pieces. Add fenugreek leaves, coconut, red chilli powder and a tsp of oil to onions. When you are ready to serve, add salt and lime juice. Toss and mix. Serve with your favorite bread. It goes very well with Chapathi and Jowar Roti. Enjoy your salad.

Jowar/Sorghum roti or Jowar rounds is a very popular among households of north Karnataka. I had savored Jowar rotis which were made on a regular basis by my grandmother; when I was offered jowar rounds in one of my friends place.....I had no words coz I had never heard of people eating jowar rounds. My friend gigled and said...this is white mudde, taste it and you may like it. I liked but did not make it for a long time. I was preparing dill leaves bassaru for our lunch and thought of making ragi mudde. Since the covers of jowar flour and ragi flour looked the same, I just picked it up and poured the flour into hot water.....ehhh.....rest is history. I enjoyed eating jowar mudde after a long time, and rest of the mudde is kept aside to make rotis for dinner. Such kitchen accidents..are beneficial, it brings back long last memories. You can read more about Jowar/Sorghum here.

Jowar rounds are made similar to ragi rounds.

Step 1: 1 cup water : 1cup flour

Step 2: Heat the water, when you see that small bubbles forming at the bottom, switch off the stove.

Step 5: When the flour mixture starts leaving the bottom of the vessel, switch off the stove. Cover the vessel and leave it aside for next 5 mins. After 5 mins,make round balls and serve with bassaru or curd.

Dill Leaves bassaru

Bassaru or basida saaru = filtered and made is justified by the method of making the saaru. As you ride over to read the recipe, you will understand the meaning too. It is popular in Mysore & Mandya districts of Karnataka.

Blend together : 4 tbsp of cooked dal, 1/2 garlic, coconut, sambar powder and water to make smooth paste.

tadka/tampering : oil, jeera, curry leaves and hing/asafoetida. Heat oil and add the tadka ingrediants in the order mentioned.

Original recipe calls for red chillies and jeera instead of sambar powder. It is just my convinience to use a powder which has everything in it.

Pressure cook/open cook dill leaves with little turmeric and more water to make saaru. when dal is cooked, filter it to remove the water from dal.

Add the masala paste and tadka to the stock water. Add tamarind paste, jaggery, salt and bring it to boil. Simmer it for 5-8 mins and remove it from the stove. Let it sit closed for next 15 mins or till you serve.

Palya/Stirfried vegetable:

With the rest of the dal and dill leaves mixture, stirfried 'palya'/vegetable is made. Heat oil in a pan, add mustard seeds, onion n garlic sautee till onion are transparent. Add curry leaves and dill and dal mix to it with some salt. Stirr to mix the ingrediants and warm it up. Serve with hot rice and bassaru.